Arkansas State University (CEE-ASU)

Recently the Wall Street Journal had the following headline for a special education report: "Smarter Jobs, Dumber Workers, Is that America's Future?" And we might add, "Is that Arkansas' future?" Many of the economic, social, demographic and technological trends that affect students entering the work force over the next few decades are already in place.

Increasing global competition, the rapid decline of communism, the growth in service sector jobs, the aging population, the information explosion, growing numbers of the economically disadvantaged, the shift toward the higher-level technical skills in the work place, the relative decline in the number of teenagers in the work force-all of these trends will have a significant impact on the career, consumer and societal economic decisions facing young people.

How we prepare our students to deal with these coming trends will, in great part, determine our degree of success as a state and as a nation. Yet, if we look at recent national report cards on high school student scores on mathematics, science, geography and economics, we are indeed an "economy at risk." In our program students in primary grades learn about scarcity, spending versus savings and opportunity costs. By the fifth grade students are learning about the connections among effort, performance, profits and rewards. By the time they are in high school, students run computer simulations and learn how to use problem solving techniques to deal with current economic issues. Students receive three very important messages from our program:

1) Human Capital Message: You are important and can contribute.

2) Productive Participation Message: You are part of the economy and can make it work for you.

3) Choice/Decision-Making Message: You have the ability to make decisions, which give you more control over your life.

Educators provide the key to the development of such an understanding but if they are to accomplish this important goal they must first become familiar with economic concepts and policies.

Teachers must also be able to interpret economic data and develop appropriate teaching techniques and materials to impart that knowledge to their students. This workshop has been designed to assist participants in the development of teaching methodologies that integrate economics into the curriculum.

The purpose of the Center of Economic Education is to service the schools of Northeast Arkansas in the fulfillment of these goals. This is accomplished through a variety of programs including:

THE STOCK MARKET GAME
Currently we are actively using the stock market game to help provide grades 4 through college to develop a comfort level with the stock market as a vehicle for investing and learning about the economy. The stock market game is a division of NCEE and the Securities Industry Education Program.

A MATERIALS AND MEDIA LIBRARY
A media library has been established which includes over 100 VHS and 16 mm movies on economics related topics for the pre-college classroom. These selected materials come from a wide range of sources including the Federal Reserve System, the Agency for Instructional Television, the Internal Revenue Service, AMOCO, EXXON and the New York Stock Exchange. The CEE Library also contains a wide variety of teaching materials and professional articles from government, industry and private economic sources designed to enhance the teaching process in the kindergarten through senior high classroom.

NONCREDIT WORKSHOPS AND SEMINARS
The CEE staff concentrates on region-wide workshops that provide teachers, at all grade levels and in most subject matters, with cognitive economic content and teaching materials and methods. The staff is prepared to provide tailor made workshops to suit the expressed needs of a school district or one of the regional education service cooperatives. The CEE has conducted workshops in formats ranging from 1 hour to 3 days in length on a variety of topics of interest to the teachers and the district. Workshops have been conducted on using art to teach economics in the elementary school, agriculture and economics, a community helpers unit for grade three teachers, international economics and economic aids for the high school economics teachers.

CURRICULUM DEVELOPMENT AND RESEARCH
The CEE staff is available to help area school personal design and improve their individual curriculum and school wide curriculum guides as part of a basic consulting service.
The Director is engaged in regional and national research into improving the value of economics taught in the classroom. This includes curriculum development for classroom use in a variety of areas related to economics subject matter.

Contact Information
Dr. Lawrence Dale
P.O. Box 2890
State University, AR 72467
972-3416
Fax: 972-3864
dalex@astate.edu